Daducha Dam to be completed within two years

Sources say project will ensure daily supply of 35m gallons of water to Rawalpindi

RAWALPINDI:

The long-anticipated state-of-the-art Daducha Dam project, which will ensure a daily supply of 35 million gallons of water to the garrison city, will be completed in two years at a cost of over Rs7 billion, sources said on Saturday.

On Friday, Frontier Works Organisation (FWO), the contract holder for the project, started working at the dam site after bringing machinery. The dam was proposed in 2001 and its contract was awarded to the FWO after 19 years, in 2020.

Daducha Dam is being built in Daducha, a small village on the outskirts of Rawalpindi. A total of 16,194 kanals of land have been acquired in Rawalpindi and Kallar Syedan for the construction of the project.

Read Work on Daducha Dam begins today

After the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) took notice of not applying the market rate in the acquisition of land, finally the land owners were paid according to the market rate for their land acquired for the dam.

During a recent visit to the dam site, Rawalpindi Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chattha said the dam was 123 feet high and 737 feet long and had a catchment area of 129 square miles. “The revenue staff concerned will carry out landmarking or survey from the site station which will remove the ambiguity,” he said, adding a deadline of two years was set to complete the project.

The commissioner said: “We will try our best to complete this project of public interest on time. Building a dam is the need of the hour.”

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The commissioner added that in light of the apex court’s decision, the local population was being given the value of their land according to the prevalent rate. “The construction of the dam will benefit Rawalpindi and its suburbs,” he said as he reviewed in detail the machinery and other preparations of the FWO to start the work on the dam.

On this occasion, Station Commander Ahmed Nawaz, Brigadier (retd) Ijaz Qamar Kayani, AG Office, Executive Engineer Small Dams Organisation, Saddar Assistant Commissioner Almas Sabih, AC Revenue Shamsur Rehman and FWO officials were also present.

With the completion of the Daducha Dam project in two years, the citizens of Rawalpindi will get clean water according to their needs. With a daily supply of 35 million gallons of water, the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) will not have to depend on tube wells.

Read Islamabad plans hatchery at Rawal Dam

WASA sources say that by supplying water from the Daducha dam, not only clean and potable water will be available to the citizens as per their needs, but by reducing its dependence on the tube wells, Wasa will also be able to get rid of heavy electricity bills.

Daducha is a 400-year-old village that is the centre of the Gakhars and Kiyani caste while there are several Rajput households in the area. This place is quite suitable for a dam as a large part of it is like a natural dam.

The water will come from the natural springs and large rain drains of the hilly tehsil Kahuta and its surrounding small hills. Its catchment area is more than that of Rawal Dam. It will have a storage capacity of 60,000 acre-feet of water while its dead-level surface will be 15,000 acre-feet.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 12^th, 2023.